Seedhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/seed
en-usThu, 17 Aug 2017 23:48:13 -0400Thu, 17 Aug 2017 23:48:13 -0400The latest news on Seed from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/monsanto-syngenta-merger-2015-6Monsanto just added billions to an offer to buy a Swiss rival and it still won't budgehttp://www.businessinsider.com/monsanto-syngenta-merger-2015-6
Sun, 07 Jun 2015 21:09:00 -0400Bryan Logan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5574e2f1ecad045f58568a12-1200-924/monsanto-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Monsanto"></p><p>Monsanto is trying again.</p>
<p>The giant agribusiness best known for its pesticides and genetically modified crop seeds is once again pursuing a merger with Syngenta, one of the world's largest manufacturers of agricultural chemicals.</p>
<p>The latest offering from Monsanto is a cash and stock deal worth about $447 (449 Swiss Francs) <span>per share</span>. That's a more than 45% premium over Syngenta's 52-week average share price.</p>
<p>Monsanto appears to be eager to win over Syngenta's skeptical advisers.</p>
<p>A person close to Syngenta <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-syngenta-ag-m-a-monsanto-idUSKBN0OK25L20150605">told Reuters</a> that Syngenta's board members are worried about the regulatory hurdles a potential merger would bring, considering the combined companies would control nearly half the seeds market in the US.</p>
<p>To that end, Monsanto has added a $2 billion reverse breakup fee that it would pay Syngenta if the deal fails the antitrust sniff test.</p>
<p>Advisers for both Monsanto and Syngenta have reportedly met in New York as recently as one week ago but, to date, no substantial headway has been made.</p>
<p>St. Louis-based Monsanto has been trying to reel in Syngenta since 2014, touting the potential for both companies to "create significant value for growers to ultimately meet the needs of broader society," Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>But, among the obstacles that could derail the merger are concerns by US lawmakers that it might open the door for Monsanto to move its headquarters out of the US;&nbsp;<span>a strategy sometimes used by large companies seeking lower corporate taxes.</span><span><br></span></p>
<p><span>Interestingly, another wrinkle underlying Syngenta's reluctance to dance with Monsanto is reputation. Reuters reported Friday that the "</span>regulatory scrutiny and consumer backlash<span>" Monsanto already faces globally is enough to make Syngenta's executives pause, regardless of how many billions of dollars are added to the deal.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/monsanto-syngenta-merger-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-interesting-facts-grocery-chain-2015-4">14 things you didn't know about Whole Foods </a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/bowman-v-monsanto-could-affect-software-2013-2A Farmer's Crusade Against Monsanto Could Determine The Future Of Patentshttp://www.businessinsider.com/bowman-v-monsanto-could-affect-software-2013-2
Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:46:30 -0500Erin Fuchs
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4c642b457f8b9a9b63de0a00-400-300/farmers-1940s.jpg" border="0" alt="farmers, poverty,, 1940s" width="400" height="300" /></p><p>The U.S. Supreme Court heard a huge fight over seed patents Tuesday&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/justices-signal-a-monsanto-edge-in-patent-case.html?_r=0">that pits an Indiana farmer against agribusiness giant</a> Monsanto.</p>
<p>That farmer, Vernon Hugh Bowman, bought and planted a single set of patented Monsanto soybean seeds and <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=159520">got in hot water after he used those seeds to create new ones</a>.</p>
<p>Bowman was ordered by a federal judge to pay $84,000 for patent infringement, and an appeals court upheld that decision, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/the-new-york-times">The New York Times</a>' Adam Liptak reported.</p>
<p>The lone farmer took his case to the nation's highest court, where he argued that he had a right to replicate the seeds, according to Liptak.</p>
<p>At issue is whether patent rights extend to seeds and other entities that can "replicate themselves beyond the first generation," Liptak reported.</p>
<p>During the arguments, it was clear that the justices <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june13/scotus_02-19.html">knew the seed-patent case could impact other industries,</a> the National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle told <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/pbs">PBS</a>.</p>
<p>"It was clear in the arguments that &ndash; in the justices' comments that they knew they were dealing with a new technology here," she said.</p>
<p>Industry group The Software Alliance seems to get the possibly huge implications of the case, as well. It filed an <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/11-796_resp_amcu_bsa.authcheckdam.pdf">amicus brief with the high court in support of Monsanto.</a> Here's the crux of the software industry's argument, from that brief:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Computer software, whose use involves the creation of temporary additional copies of the software program, could be characterized as self-replicating, although software programs obviously differ in critical ways from agricultural seeds. <strong>A legal rule eliminating patent protection for 'self-replicating' seeds that had the same result with respect to temporary copies of software programs would faciliate software piracy on a broad scale.</strong></p>
<p>Bowman's case is not the only one that could affect software patents. This term the Supreme Court will also hear a case over whether companies <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-gene-patent-case-2012-11">can patent isolated genes</a>.</p>
<p>Patent attorney Justin McCarthy has argued the gene patent case <a href="http://www.patents4software.com/2011/09/the-software-impact-of-myriad-genetics/">could affect software patents.</a> He pointed out that software patents, like the gene patents at issue, also rely on analyzing and comparing data.</p>
<p>Since the tech industry relies so heavily on intellectual property, it seems any patent case involving new technology could help shape that industry's future.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-patent-holding-companies-2012-11" >Tech's 8 Most Fearsome Patent 'Trolls' ></a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bowman-v-monsanto-could-affect-software-2013-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/former-aoler-seed-was-a-flop-from-the-beginning-2011-10Former AOLer: 'Seed Was A Flop From The Beginning' (AOL)http://www.businessinsider.com/former-aoler-seed-was-a-flop-from-the-beginning-2011-10
Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:41:53 -0400Noah Davis
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4b1eb8cf00000000005820a4-400-300/saul-hansell.jpg" border="0" alt="Saul Hansell" width="400" height="300" /></p><p>We heard last week that Seed was effectively "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/is-aols-seed-defunct-2011-9" target="_blank">defunct</a>."</p>
<p>The truth, according to another source who worked closely on the project, is that Seed has essentially been dead for a very long time. It was, in their words, a "nonstarter" that "was a flop from the beginning."</p>
<p>There were a number of problems with Seed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way" target="_blank">The AOL Way</a> called for editors to develop stories based on search queries. Freelancers would write them quickly, and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/aol">AOL</a> would monetize against that content.</p>
<p>A lot of staffers, however, wouldn't put many stories up for freelancers to write.</p>
<p>"Not many editors within AOL would put their articles on Seed because they would get back inferior content," the source told us.</p>
<p>In the end, there were not enough writers, not enough stories, and very low pay.</p>
<p>Additionally, Saul Hansell &mdash; the man in charge of Seed &mdash; was more of a big news guy. (Our source reported that Hansell had a copy of the article he wrote about the AOL/Time Warner merger on his desk.)</p>
<p>The Seed purview didn't fit his interest or his skill set.</p>
<p>Given that, it's no surprise that Hansell <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/former-timesman-saul-hansell-gets-a-new-gig-at-aol-2011-5" target="_blank">moved to be "Big News editor" at the Huffington Post</a> in May.</p>
<p>Seed is not completely dead &mdash; the website says <a href="http://www.seed.com/" target="_blank">they are "reformatting"</a> and new assignments are "on hold" &mdash; but the entire plan certainly looks more and more like a failure.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/former-aoler-seed-was-a-flop-from-the-beginning-2011-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/is-aols-seed-defunct-2011-9AOL's Seed Is 'Defunct'http://www.businessinsider.com/is-aols-seed-defunct-2011-9
Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:50:14 -0400Noah Davis
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4b17df0e0000000000194a99/tim-armstrong-4x3.jpg" border="0" alt="tim armstrong 4x3" /></p><p><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/aol">AOL</a> launched Seed, its platform for freelancers, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-seedcom-2009-12" target="_blank">to great fanfare in late 2009</a>.</p>
<p>It was intended as a way for AOL to solicit content from freelancers. Editors would post stories, and writers would get them written. It was an efficient, seamless way to generate articles (and increase SEO-driven pageviews).</p>
<p>But has the work already dried up?</p>
<p>Last we heard from Seed, its boss <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/former-timesman-saul-hansell-gets-a-new-gig-at-aol-2011-5" target="_blank">Saul Hansell was moving to the Huffington Post as "Big News editor."</a></p>
<p>Now, we're hearing there's no more work from one freelancer who responded to a post about <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/s?q=patch&amp;sort=date" target="_blank">our ongoing reporting on Patch</a>.</p>
<p>The source wrote:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I've seen this before with AOL. I also contributed to City's Best for a few months (mom content, four stories total). Pay was less than Patch. A few weeks after my last story was posted on City's Best, I inquired if the editor would like more ideas. Her response was that the site was no longer using freelancers and would only use staff stories. The staff for the [redacted] site consisted of two people. Now one freelancer contributes one story a week to City's Best [redacted]. <strong>I was paid through Seed, and, of course, I noticed that Seed is pretty much defunct. No stories to claim. Looks like Patch is going to follow the same path.</strong></p>
<p>We contacted AOL's PR department but have yet to hear back. <strong><br /></strong></p>
<p>If you have any tips about Seed or Patch, let us know (ndavis@businessinsider.com; 646.376.6016)<strong><br /></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/is-aols-seed-defunct-2011-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/notes-on-raising-seed-financing-2011-612 Things To Know About Raising Seed Financinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/notes-on-raising-seed-financing-2011-6
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:59:00 -0400Chris Dixon
<p>Last night I taught a <a href="http://www.skillshare.com/Planting-the-Seed-How-to-Raise-Your-First-Round/1124114253/1124114253">class</a> via <a href="http://www.skillshare.com">Skillshare</a> (disclosure: <a href="http://foundercollective.com">Founder Collective</a> is an investor) about how to raise a seed round. After a long day I wasn&rsquo;t particularly looking forward to it, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and I stayed well past the scheduled end time. I think it worked well because the audience was full of people actually starting companies, and they came well prepared (they were all avid readers of tech blogs and had seemed to have done a lot of research).</p>
<p>I sketched some notes for the class which I&rsquo;m posting below. I&rsquo;ve written ad nauseum on this blog (see&nbsp;<a href="http://cdixon.org/contents">contents</a> page) about venture financing so hadn&rsquo;t planned to blog more on the topic. But since I wrote up these notes already, here they are.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>1. Best thing is to either never need to raise money or to raise money after you have a product, users, or customers&nbsp; Also helps a lot if you&rsquo;ve started a successful business before or came from a senior position at a successful company.</p>
<p>2. Assuming that&rsquo;s not the case, it is very difficult to raise money, even when people (e.g. press) are saying it&rsquo;s easy and &ldquo;everyone is getting funded.&rdquo;</p>
<p>3. Fundraising is an extremely momentum-based process. Hardest part is getting &ldquo;anchor&rdquo; investors. &nbsp;These are people or institutions who commit significant capital (&gt;$100K) and are respected in the tech community or in the specific industry you are going after (e.g. successful fashion people investing in a fashion-related startup).</p>
<p>4. Investors like to wait (&ldquo;flip another card over&rdquo;) while you want to hurry. Lots of investors like to wait until other investors they respect commit. Hence a sort of Catch-22. As Paul Graham <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/hiresfund.html">says</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">By far the biggest influence on investors&rsquo; opinions of a startup is the opinion of other investors. There are very, very few who simply decide for themselves. Any startup founder can tell you the most common question they hear from investors is not about the founders or the product, but &ldquo;who else is investing?&rdquo;</p>
<p>5. Network like crazy:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make sure you have good Google results (this is your first impression in tech). Have a good bio page (on your blog, linkedin and about.me) and blog/tweet to get Google juice.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Get involved in your local tech community. &nbsp;Join meetups. Help organize events. &nbsp;Become a hub in the local tech social graph.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Meet every entrepreneur and investor you can. &nbsp;Entrepreneurs tend to be more accessible &amp; sympathetic and can often make warm intros to investors.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Avoid anyone asks you to pay for intros (even indirectly like committing to a law firm in exchange for intros).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Don&rsquo;t be afraid to (politely) overreach and <a href="http://cdixon.org/2010/09/12/getting-rejected/">get rejected</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>6. Get smart on the industry:</p>
<ul>
<li>Read TechCrunch, Business Insider, GigaOm, Techmeme, Fred Wilson&rsquo;s blog, Mark Suster&rsquo;s blog, etc (and go back and read the archives). Follow investor/startup people on Twitter (Sulia has some good lists to get you started&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sulia.com/channel/venture-capital/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.sulia.com/channel/startups/">here</a>).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Research every investor and entrepreneur extensively before you meet them. &nbsp;Entrepreneurs love it when you&rsquo;ve used their product and give them constructive feedback. &nbsp;It&rsquo;s like bringing a new parent a kid&rsquo;s toy. &nbsp;Investors like it when you are smart about their portfolio and interests.</li>
</ul>
<p>6. How much to raise? &nbsp;Enough to hit an accretive milestone plus some buffer. (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/12/28/whats-the-right-amount-of-seed-money-to-raise/">more</a>)</p>
<p>7. What terms should you look for? &nbsp;Here are <a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/08/16/ideal-first-round-funding-terms/">ideal terms</a>. &nbsp;You need to understand all these terms and also the&nbsp;<a href="http://cdixon.org/2010/08/31/converts-versus-equity-deals/">difference between convertible notes and equity</a>. &nbsp;More generally, it&rsquo;s a good idea to spend a few days getting smart about startup-related law &ndash; this is a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law/dp/0324042914">good book</a> to start with.</p>
<p>8. Types of capital: &nbsp;strategic angels (industry experts), non-strategic angels (not industry experts, not tech investors), tech angels, seed funds, VCs.</p>
<ul>
<li>VCs can be less valuation sensitive and have deep pockets but are sometimes buying options so come with some risks. (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/08/14/the-problem-with-taking-seed-money-from-big-vcs/">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Industry experts can be really nice complements to tech investors (especially in b2b companies). (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/11/03/how-to-select-your-angel-investors/">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Non-strategic angels (rich people with no relevant expertise) might not help as much but might be more patient and ok with &ldquo;lifestyle businesses.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Tech angels and seed funds tend to be most valuation sensitive but can sometimes make up for it by helping in later financing rounds.</li>
</ul>
<p>9. Pitching:</p>
<ul>
<li>Have a short slide deck, not a business plan. (<a href="http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-not-write-business-plan.html">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Pitch yourself first, idea second. (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/11/14/pitch-yourself-not-your-idea/">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Pitch the upside, not the mean (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2009/08/31/pitch-vcs-the-right-tail-of-the-distribution-not-the-mean/">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Size markets using narratives, not numbers (<a href="http://cdixon.org/2010/04/03/size-markets-using-narratives-not-numbers/">more</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>10. Cofounders: they are good if for no other reason than moral support. Find ones that complement you. Decide on&nbsp;responsibilities, equity split etc early and document it. &nbsp;(Legal documents don&rsquo;t hurt friendships &ndash; they preserve them).</p>
<p>11. Incubators like YC and Techstars can be great. &nbsp;99% of the people I know who participated in them say it was worth it.</p>
<p>12.&nbsp;To investors, the sexiest word in the English language is &ldquo;oversubscribed.&rdquo; Sometimes it makes tactical sense to start out raising a smaller round than you actually want end up with.</p>
<div>
<div id="disqus_thread">&nbsp;</div>
<div>
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
var disqus_url = 'http://cdixon.org/2011/06/09/notes-on-raising-seed-financing/';
// ]]></script>
<script src="http://disqus.com/forums/cdixon/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</div>
</div>
<p><strong>Read more posts on <a href="http://cdixon.org/">cdixon.org &raquo;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/notes-on-raising-seed-financing-2011-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/david-tepper-seeding-a-new-hedge-fund-launched-by-one-of-his-disciples-2011-5David Tepper Gives Birth To A New Hedge Fund (JPM)http://www.businessinsider.com/david-tepper-seeding-a-new-hedge-fund-launched-by-one-of-his-disciples-2011-5
Wed, 04 May 2011 15:00:00 -0400Katya Wachtel
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4d39849b49e2ae16243d0000/david-tepper.png" border="0" alt="David Tepper" /></p><p>Hedge fund king David Tepper will seed a new fund that's being launched by one of his senior analysts at Appaloosa, Matthew Knauer, according to the Bloomberg wire.</p>
<p>Knauer and another co-founder, Mina Faltas, who's an analyst at Viking Global, have named their new stock and credit hedge fund Nokota Management.</p>
<p>They'll commence trading in Q3 with about $250 million.</p>
<p>Knauer, who's only 33, has been with Appaloosa for six years.</p>
<p>He covered tech, media and telecoms for the hedge fund.</p>
<p>And he was hoping <a href="http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/matthew-knauer.asp?cycle=08">for a Giuliani presidency in 2008</a>.</p>
<p>His partner, Faltas, is also 33. He covered distressed debt and public equities at Viking Global, focusing particularly on tech, media, telecoms, health-care and gaming.</p>
<p>He earned his finance chops at JP Morgan, where he rose to Vice President in the bank's Proprietary Positioning unit, according to his bio on <a href="http://www.imentor.org/young-executive-board/mina-faltas">iMentor</a> -- a mentoring organization on which he's on the young executive board.</p>
<p>He earned a B.S in commerce from the University of Virginia.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-tepper-seeding-a-new-hedge-fund-launched-by-one-of-his-disciples-2011-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-robertson-reopens-tiger-management-to-outside-investors-accelerator-fund-2011-4Julian Robertson Is Reopening Tiger Management To Outside Investors For The First Time In A Decade (GS)http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-robertson-reopens-tiger-management-to-outside-investors-accelerator-fund-2011-4
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:01:00 -0400Katya Wachtel
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4d9a9d20ccd1d5897e2f0000/tiger-management-julian-roberston-open.jpg" border="0" alt="tiger management julian roberston open" /></p><p>After a ten-year hiatus, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/julian-robertson" class="hidden_link">Julian Robertson</a> is finally reopening <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/tiger-global-management" class="hidden_link">Tiger Management</a> to outside investors, <a href="http://www.absolutereturn-alpha.com/Article/2800937/Latest-News/Tiger-Management-launches-co-seeding-fund.html">Lawrence Delevingne at AR</a> reports.</p>
<p>The reopening has been rumored for months, and hit its peak when Robertson hired Tiger Management's former chief trader Gil Caffray (who was most recently with Tiger cub Touradji Capital) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tigers-chief-trader-returns-to-the-hedge-fund-as-cio-gil-caffray-julian-robertson-cub-touradji-2011-1">as chief investment officer</a> in early January.</p>
<p>Prior to that, Roberston recruited former <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/goldman-sachs" class="hidden_link">Goldman Sachs</a> exec John Townsend as COO and managing partner.</p>
<p>These high-profile additions made it clear Robertson was planning something; now we know what that something is: the Tiger Accelerator Fund.</p>
<p>"The firm is attempting to raise money for the Tiger Accelerator Fund, a co-seeding vehicle that gives investors a piece of the fee revenue and performance at a group of six Tiger-seeded hedge funds," <a href="http://www.absolutereturn-alpha.com/Article/2800937/Latest-News/Tiger-Management-launches-co-seeding-fund.html">AR</a> reports.</p>
<p>Robertson <a href="http://fundville.com/blog/2010/03/the-ultimate-guide-to-tiger-cubs-and-tiger-seeds/">has seeded at least 38 hedge fund manager</a>s; the chosen six were picked because of a "belief in their merits and superior position for growth."</p>
<p>Tiger Accelerator wants to raise $450 million this summer; the three larger funds will then receive $100 million each, and the three smaller firm's will get $50 million, according to <a href="http://www.absolutereturn-alpha.com/Article/2800937/Latest-News/Tiger-Management-launches-co-seeding-fund.html">AR</a> .</p>
<p>The funds are:</p>
<ol>
<li><em>Tiger Eye</em>: Launched in 2009 by Benjamin Gambill, it has $42.5 million AUM and invests in natural resources, financials and industrials.</li>
<li><em>Long Oar</em>: Launched in 2009 by James Davidson, it has about $150 million AUM and invests in cyclicals and industrials</li>
<li><em>Tiger Ratan</em>: Launched in 2009 by Nehal Chopra, it has about $40 million AUM and is a generalist fund</li>
<li><em>Cascabel:</em> Launched in 2008 by Scott Sinclair and Laurence Chang, it has about $158 million AUM and invests in tech, financials, telecom and consumer goods</li>
<li><em>Tiger Veda</em>: Launched in 2005 by Manish Chopra, it has $213 million AUM and is a generalist fund</li>
<li><em>Teewinot</em>: Launched in 2003 by Michael Moriarty, it has about $31 million AUM and is generalist fund</li>
</ol>
<p>The minimum investment is $5 million, and there's a lock-up for two years.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-hedge-fund-cubs-dwarf-their-former-endowment-home-2011-3">Now meet the Crimson Cubs: The Killer Hedge Funds emerging from the Harvard Endowment &gt;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-robertson-reopens-tiger-management-to-outside-investors-accelerator-fund-2011-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-spam-2011-1Google Getting Rid Of Junk In Search Results -- Here's What It Means (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-spam-2011-1
Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:56:00 -0500Dan Frommer
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4b9940a57f8b9a07213c0200/google-matt-cutts.jpg" border="0" alt="google matt cutts" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a> says it will <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html">work even harder</a> to remove more junk and spam sites from its search results after recent attacks about its search quality.</p>
<p>Beyond just attacking "pure webspam," as Google describes it, it's also looking into reducing search relevance for "sites that copy others&rsquo; content and sites with low levels of original content."</p>
<p>Google's anti-spam head Matt Cutts <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html">says in a blog post</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">As &ldquo;pure webspam&rdquo; has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to &ldquo;content farms,&rdquo; which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM">low-quality sites</a>. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content.</p>
<p><strong>Note that Google doesn't specifically say it HAS taken or IS taking additional action against content farms, just that it's "evaluating multiple changes" and that it "hear[s] the feedback."</strong></p>
<p>The implications from Google's announcement:</p>
<ul>
<li>This could be bad news for content farms like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/demand-media">Demand Media</a>, which is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/demand-media-prices-ipo-could-be-worth-almost-140-million-2011-1">IPOing</a> next week; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yahoo" class="hidden_link">Yahoo</a>'s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/associated-content" class="hidden_link">Associated Content</a>; AOL's Seed; etc. But only if Google actually takes action against them; so far, they're just talking about it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>This means "no spammy results" search engine competitors like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/blekko">Blekko</a> are doomed. But Blekko was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blekko-doomed">always doomed</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Anyone who says "Google isn't focused on search" or "Google is letting search quality go to crap" is full of beans.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Earlier: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-open-2011-1">Sorry Google, But "Open" Is A Crock</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-spam-2011-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/seedsummit-2010SeedCamp Starts SeedSummit, Europe's Answer To AngelListhttp://www.businessinsider.com/seedsummit-2010
Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:39:09 -0500Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4b69ca910000000000ad56c0/victorias-secret-angels.jpg" border="0" alt="victorias secret angels" /></p><p>SeedCamp is the European, Y Combinator-like seed accelerator which got started in Europe in 2007 and is now all over the world with outfits in places like Singapore, Mumbai and Johannesburg.</p>
<p>AngelList is the brainchild of angels Babak Nivi and Naval Ravikant, which is an email list for angel investors to which they send startups and makes closing angel rounds much more easy and more efficient.</p>
<p>If the two got drunk one night in Paris, their love child might look like <a href="http://seedsummit.org/">SeedSummit</a>.</p>
<p>The site looks more like a social network or a dating site for seed investors and startups, which might be appropriate, but the idea is the same as AngelList: aggregating investors and putting them in one place and making it much more efficient for startups to raise money. You don't have to be a SeedCamp startup to join SeedSummit. You just need to be a startup and have a few proof points to show you're "for real". Which is similar to AngelList, which is curated by its founders.</p>
<p>Raising seed capital in Europe is still harder than in the US, so this is absolutely a great idea. It's a great idea in the US and it's a great idea in Europe. Anything that makes the seed funding process easier gets thumbs up from us.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/seedsummit-2010#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-real-reason-why-some-superangels-want-to-flip-and-keep-valuations-down-2010-11Here's The REAL Reason Why Some Superangels Want To Keep Valuations Down And Just Fliphttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-real-reason-why-some-superangels-want-to-flip-and-keep-valuations-down-2010-11
Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:13:00 -0500Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4bc5f5717f8b9ae1331e0000/victorias-secret-angel.jpg" border="0" alt="victorias-secret-angel" /></p><p>So-called "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/super-angel">superangels</a>," business angels who have gone pro and raised a fund from institutional investors, are changing the startup investment landscape and, some say, not for the better.</p>
<p>The superangels have basically brought two different kinds of concerns, which we'll see are related:</p>
<ul>
<li>That superangels are bidding up valuations for startups, particularly consumer web startups, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/storm-clouds-on-the-horizon-for-web-entrepreneurs-2010-11">to an insane point</a>, and </li>
<li>That superangels are investing and encouraging companies to just "flip," i.e. get acquired for eight figure amounts that would make the founders rich and give the angels a good return, but are too small to matter for VCs and to build the huge, iconic companies that startup founders are supposed to want to build.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<p>All these worries came to a head when Michael Arrington accused <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/angel-collusion">several prominent Silicon Valley superangels</a> to collude to keep startup valuations down. But nobody's pointed out why doing such a thing would be so attractive to superangels. After all, you would think that any investor, angel, superangel or VC, would want to invest in the next Google or Facebook.</p>
<p>But besides the additional risk in going for the multibillion dollar outcome and how tens of millions of dollars can completely change the life of a young startup founder, there's also a reason why keeping valuations down and going for the flip can appeal specifically to superangels: <strong>it's because superangels are evaluated according to their Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and not on a cash multiple basis.</strong></p>
<p>There's a crucial difference between the two. Cash multiple just says how much cash is returned versus how much cash was invested. But IRR takes into account those returns <strong>over time. </strong>In other words, a huge payout after a long period of years can work out to a lower IRR than smaller, but quicker, payouts that end up returning less cash overall to investors. (For an example, see <a href="http://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/354319621/cash-multiples-vs-irrs-in-vc-funds">this post</a> by Andrew Parker, a VC at Spark Capital.)</p>
<p>Superangels, like VCs, raise money from institutional investors called Limited Partners (LPs), like big banks, pension funds and university endowments. And these LPs don't just invest in venture funds, they invest over a very large range of asset classes, from the pedestrian (stocks, bonds) to the exotic, like private equity. LPs use IRR to compare the returns over all these different asset classes, and professional venture investors, whether traditional VC or superangels, need to have a better IRR than those other investments. Superangels with better IRRs can raise bigger funds and/or demand higher fees.</p>
<p>By focusing on the speed, and not just the size of the exits, superangel funds can give much better IRRs to their investors than most traditional VCs. (Paul Graham made that point <a href="http://paulgraham.com/superangels.html">here</a>.)</p>
<p>And the macro environment favors this, too. Companies take forever to go public now which, all else being equal, will lower VCs' IRR. Meanwhile it's much easier for superangels to sell their stakes in big startups through secondary sales and/or DST-type deals.</p>
<p>But for this approach to work, the valuations at which superangels invest have to be low. If you're going for an eight figure exit, a lower investment valuation is going to matter a lot more than if you're going for a ten figure exit.</p>
<p>Of course, we'll probably never know if there really was (or is) "collusion" to bring early stage valuations down, and we don't doubt that many superangels want to build huge, disruptive businesses and not just flip. But we think it's important to point out that there's an economic logic to superangels wanting to "flip."&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-real-reason-why-some-superangels-want-to-flip-and-keep-valuations-down-2010-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-invested-in-40-startups-this-year-and-hes-not-going-to-stop-2010-11Meet The Most Active Angel Investor In The Worldhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-invested-in-40-startups-this-year-and-hes-not-going-to-stop-2010-11
Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:36:00 -0500Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4cd9690d4bd7c8045e020000-400-/jeremie-berrebi-kima-ventures.jpg" border="0" alt="jeremie berrebi kima ventures" width="400" /></p><p>Kima Ventures is an international seed fund that launched this year with the goal of investing in 100 startups in two years. How are they doing? Well, they've invested in 42 companies so far and have raised their goal to 200 startups. They're part of the new wave of super angel funds that is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-frances-new-and-awesome-super-angels-2010-4">taking France by storm</a>, but they invest all over the world, including in the US.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The fund is the brainchild of Xavier Niel, the self-made billionaire founder of Free, France's biggest independent ISP, and new part-owner of Le Monde, France's most prestigious newspaper, and of Jeremie Berrebi, a French-Israeli serial entrepreneur.</p>
<p>Kima Ventures is probably <strong>the most active seed-stage fund in the world </strong>right now, maybe even more active than accelerators like Y Combinator.</p>
<p>Berrebi gave <a href="http://frenchweb.fr/entretien-jeremie-berrebi-kima-ventures-15243/">an interview this morning</a> to French startup blog FrenchWeb.fr. We've picked some of the best takeaways.</p>
<p><em>(Disclosure: I advised Kima Ventures' launch and cofounded one of their companies.)</em></p><h3>Kima Ventures Now Has 42 Portfolio Companies</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ac0961ac63628793758bfd6-400-300/kima-ventures-now-has-42-portfolio-companies.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>They Plan To Have 200 Startups In Their Portfolio In Two Years</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4c5873b57f8b9a5d3a980600-400-300/they-plan-to-have-200-startups-in-their-portfolio-in-two-years.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>When they started earlier this year, they wanted to invest in 100 companies in two years. Now the two entrepreneurs have decided to invest in TWO HUNDRED startups in the same amount of time.</p>
<p>By way of comparison, in a traditional venture fund each partner might be expected to sit on 10-12 boards, so a 2 partner venture fund might have 20-24 portfolio companies max. Superangel fund Founder Collective, also founded this year, which the Wall Street Journal <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/11/01/the-money-trail-this-years-most-active-venture-firms/">recently named</a> the most active in the US, has 24 portfolio companies right now.</p>
<p><em>(Via <a href="http://frenchweb.fr/entretien-jeremie-berrebi-kima-ventures-15243/">FrenchWeb.fr</a>)</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>They'll Invest In One Hour -- Literally</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4b4f6c050000000000e405f5-400-300/theyll-invest-in-one-hour-literally.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Entrepreneurs frequently complain about the slow decision-making process of many venture firms. Kima Ventures has closed investments in one hour. They will often take 24 hours. Basically all it takes is for both partners to like the idea and the team.</p>
<p>Because the fund invests all over the world, Berrebi smilingly says that he's never met many of the entrepreneurs in the portfolio.</p>
<p><em>(Via <a href="http://frenchweb.fr/entretien-jeremie-berrebi-kima-ventures-15243/">FrenchWeb.fr</a>)</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-invested-in-40-startups-this-year-and-hes-not-going-to-stop-2010-11#you-need-a-real-business-model-though-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-seed-job-2010-11AOL Needs Someone To Seduce Journalists Into Working For Its "Seed" Content Factory (AOL)http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-seed-job-2010-11
Mon, 08 Nov 2010 11:46:00 -0500Dan Frommer
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ca21b0a7f8b9ac819fa0000/mike-arrington-tim-armstrong.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike Arrington Tim Armstrong" /></p><p>If <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-yahoo-deal-2010-11">AOL and Yahoo merge</a>, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will finally get his hands on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/associated-content">Associated Content</a>, the content factory that he invested in long ago, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/three-months-ago-aol-tried-to-buy-associated-content-2009-12">tried to buy for AOL last year</a>, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-how-yahoo-bought-associated-content-2010-6">watched Yahoo purchase earlier this year</a>.</p>
<p>But in the meantime, AOL is building out its answer to Associated Content, which is called Seed. For now, that means hiring for several positions at Seed, including this role, which AOL is advertising -- "<a href="https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/asp/tg/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=602814&amp;PartnerId=25237&amp;SiteId=36&amp;type=mail&amp;JobReqLang=1&amp;recordstart=1&amp;JobSiteId=36&amp;JobSiteInfo=602814_36&amp;gqid=0">Seed Network Manager.</a>"</p>
<p>This person will basically be in charge of getting journalists, writers, and editors interested in working with Seed -- a very important role.</p>
<p>(But perhaps the best part is AOL's big, corny pitch: "Do you want to make the Internet better?")</p>
<p>Here's how AOL describes it:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Internet Believers</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Do you want to make the Internet better?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">We do too. And we're looking for people to help us. We need free spirits and straight shooters. Creatives and critics. Nerds with nerve. People who love the Internet, but can see its cracks... and future too.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">This role can be based in New York City or Nashville, TN.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The SEED Network Manager is responsible for the growth, development and management of AOL&rsquo;s SEED Network with a focus on writers, journalists, and editors. &nbsp;The overarching goal of the position is to make sure that the AOL creator network has the best writers and journalists in the right places, with the right skills and experience to handle any assignments needed by AOL websites and other customers of our content network.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The manager will take the lead recruiting new writers, journalists, and editors using the Seed and StudioNow websites and other means. The manager will also screen applicants, and select members of the network for specific assignments. The role also involves developing training, community and professional development programs for writing and editorial professionals.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">This is an exciting position for someone with a lot of experience dealing with freelance writers and other creative professionals who wants to be in the vanguard of the news and information industry. It requires the creativity to invent new methods to create high quality content through innovative and satisfying relationships with creators.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/asp/tg/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=602814&amp;PartnerId=25237&amp;SiteId=36&amp;type=mail&amp;JobReqLang=1&amp;recordstart=1&amp;JobSiteId=36&amp;JobSiteInfo=602814_36&amp;gqid=0">More at the job listing &gt;</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-seed-job-2010-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/micro-vcs-are-in-it-for-more-than-just-quick-exits-and-easy-dollars-2010-9Micro VCs Are In It For More Than Just Quick Exits And Easy Dollars http://www.businessinsider.com/micro-vcs-are-in-it-for-more-than-just-quick-exits-and-easy-dollars-2010-9
Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:06:00 -0400Rob Go
<div class="text-body">
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4c07b19d7f8b9a9e7c550500/watering-can-flowers-plants-grow.jpg" border="0" alt="watering can flowers plants grow" />One of the supposed drawbacks of more seed stage funding in Silicon Valley is that it encourages more &ldquo;quick flip&rdquo; exits.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It is true that entrepreneurs that are trying built long-term, sustainable, and market transforming businesses tend to be the backbone of meaningful economic growth, and it&rsquo;s just plain fun to be involved with these kinds of businesses.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But the wrong message is that all seed investors are driving towards quick flips. Frankly, I think very few micro-VC&rsquo;s (or Super Angels, or whatever) are doing so. &nbsp;And based on the folks I know, I think very few micro-VC&rsquo;s invest in entrepreneurs who are explicitly going for a quick flip. &nbsp;For what it&rsquo;s worth, here are my more nuanced thoughts on the subject:</p>
<p><strong>Glimmers of Greatness.</strong>&nbsp;This is similar language that Mike Moritz <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/mike-moritzs-midas-touch-green-dots-billions-and-whispers-of-greatness/">used on stage</a> at Techcrunch Disrupt. Really transformative companies usually begin with a glimmer of greatness. &nbsp;And as Bijan said, very small amounts of capital can help an entrepreneur begin to pursue greatness. But a glimmer is just a glimmer. &nbsp;It&rsquo;s not a sure thing, and most audacious ideas start with something small, confusing, and maybe even seemingly insignificant. I would suggest that almost all micro-VC&rsquo;s need to see this glimmer to make an investment, and hope that their seed capital gives birth to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/21/mike-maples-talks-venture-capital-and-thunder-lizards/">Thunder Lizards</a>..&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Prospective vs. Retrospective</strong>. Here&rsquo;s what it gets interesting. &nbsp;The difficulty in certain sectors of the internet is that often, it&rsquo;s very very difficult to prospectively know whether a company is going to become great. &nbsp;The glimmer may be there, but glimmers fade. &nbsp;You might not get a thunder lizard&hellip; you may just get a Kimodo Dragon. There are so many examples of this it&rsquo;s not worth listing. &nbsp;The point is that most companies aren&rsquo;t clearly &ldquo;go big or go home&rdquo; companies or &ldquo;small but sure&rdquo; companies. &nbsp;Most companies fall somewhere in the middle, and the likely outcomes are very uncertain (and can change over time).&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Alignment and Slow Capital.</strong>&nbsp;Because of these challenges, large VC&rsquo;s are in a difficult position. &nbsp;They end up passing very often because an idea seemed &ldquo;too small&rdquo;, even if the entrepreneur was clearly going to build important value in the early years of the company. &nbsp;What micro-VC&rsquo;s are able to do is not worry too much about this. &nbsp;They are better aligned with the entrepreneur early on because they can do well in both a smaller, capital efficient win, or a big, venture scale outcome. &nbsp;They can allow the entrepreneur to make progress, build value, and make the decision of &ldquo;go big or go home&rdquo; with more information. It&rsquo;s just a matter of incentives. At the end of the day, anyone managing a fund is just trying to produce meaningful returns. As a rule of thumb, an exit that produces a &ldquo;meaningful return&rdquo; for a VC ~ their fund size, and that&rsquo;s part of what drives alignment or misalignment.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Making the Most of Time. &nbsp;</strong>This element is usually overlooked I find. &nbsp;It takes a lot of time to try to build a big company. &nbsp;Also, if you&rsquo;ve raised a lot of money, some investors will try really hard to keep a company alive to try to make their money back - and this also takes a lot of time. But an entrepreneur may get to year 2 or 3 of their company and say &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a 5% chance this can be huge but it will take another 7 years, or I could sell now for a good outcome and move on.&rdquo; &nbsp;What to do? &nbsp;5% isn&rsquo;t great odds, but some investors might really urge the entrepreneur to go big or go home. &nbsp;I think the answer is: the entrepreneur should do whatever he/she wants. &nbsp;Those 7 years are valuable, and who knows? &nbsp;After a mid-sized win, this entrepreneur will just have more flexibility to go for a big home run. Which brings me to my last point:</p>
<p><strong>It&rsquo;s a Multi-Turn Game.</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;I think some investors are short sighted and think too hard about optimizing one deal or extracting as much money from one exit. &nbsp;But it&rsquo;s a multi-turn game. &nbsp;Sure, it&rsquo;s too bad if an entrepreneur decides to sell a bit earlier than an investor would like. &nbsp; But they will be back, maybe several more times&nbsp;</p>
</div>
<!-- end .text-body --> <!-- end .text -->
<p><em>This article originally appeared at <a href="http://www.robgo.org/">RobGo.org</a> and is republished here with permission. </em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/micro-vcs-are-in-it-for-more-than-just-quick-exits-and-easy-dollars-2010-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/valuation-witchcraft-where-do-seed-valuations-come-from-2-2010-9Valuation Witchcraft — Where Do Seed Valuations Come From?http://www.businessinsider.com/valuation-witchcraft-where-do-seed-valuations-come-from-2-2010-9
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:25:52 -0400Rob Go
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4ca37b097f8b9a3b1e3e0c00/witch.jpg" border="0" alt="Witch" /></p><p>Given all the talk recently about rising seed valuations and <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/09/27/angelgate-players-come-face-to-face-but-fireworks-are-few/">AngelGate</a>, I wanted to do a sequel to my old post on <a href="http://www.robgo.org/post/587087750/how-vcs-value-early-stage-companies">how VC&rsquo;s Value Early Stage Companies</a>. The valuation dynamics are even more puzzling at the seed stage, where there is even less to value. Rather than provide a very structured formula for seed stage pricing, I just want to offer some principles of seed stage pricing to help entrepreneurs navigate this process better.</p>
<div class="text-body">
<p><strong>Principle One</strong>: Early stage company valuations are a negotiation exercise. It&rsquo;s not a quantitative analysis of intrinsic value. The best way to create pricing power as an entrepreneur is to create competition for your equity. Cases in point? <a href="http://www.foursquare.com/">Foursquare</a>, <a href="http://www.quora.com/">Quora</a>, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Principle Two:</strong> Price is not everything. Actually, not even close. Two subpoints: 1. There are a lot of other valuation mechanisms and terms that can really impact a deal. Many others have <a href="http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2009/07/in-vc-deals-price-doesnt-matter-but-the-promote-does.html">blogged</a> about this, so please do your homework. 2. Being overly fixated on price can be a really bad sign to investors and spook them if you don&rsquo;t handle the negotiation properly. It can be a signal that the entrepreneur is going to be focused too much on control and preserving ownership than building large scale economic value. It may mean that the entrepreneur will be too conservative at the wrong time, or have trouble bringing on great people and letting go of enough control and equity to help great people thrive.The advice I&rsquo;ve heard from both VC&rsquo;s and successful entrepreneurs is to focus more on finding great investors to work with, get a good and fair deal, and get back to work building the business.</p>
<p><strong>Principle Three:</strong> High pricing has its costs. When capital is plentiful, it&rsquo;s easier to raise money and pricing is more favorable. &nbsp;But there is also greater competitive rivalry as it&rsquo;s easier to enter and copy, and there is <a href="http://www.robgo.org/post/1168952769/implications-of-increased-seed-capital">more competition for talent</a>. Also, there will be more competition for follow-on financings unless capital is also expanding among later stage investors as well (which isn&rsquo;t happening now). It&rsquo;s not a completely rosy picture.</p>
<p><strong>Principle Four:</strong> Pricing ebbs and flows. And given how long it takes to build great companies, entrepreneurs are likely to see both attractive and unattractive pricing environments over the course of a company. So when the getting is good, I think entrepreneurs should absolutely take advantage of it. But remember it&rsquo;s a long term game, and <a href="http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/asymmetric-risk-and-the-dangers-of-too-high-a-valuation/">raising a big round at a super high valuation has its drawbacks</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>One final thought. I&rsquo;m of the opinion that early stage VC&rsquo;s typically overpay for a company&rsquo;s equity. &nbsp;It&rsquo;s just the nature of this market. The failure rate of early stage companies is very high (even with very strong founders). So on a risk adjusted basis, my view is that an early stage company&rsquo;s NPV is usually below even low single-digit million pre-money valuations. And from a different perspective, very few early stage companies could sell for their pre-money valuation at the time of investment. That&rsquo;s why I think it&rsquo;s not surprising that the venture industry as a whole hasn&rsquo;t performed well. &nbsp;It&rsquo;s not an asset class that is attractive as an index. But it IS a distribution of performance where the best managers can produce (and have produced) stellar returns.</p>
<p>What this means to me is that as an investor, you shouldn&rsquo;t get too hung up on price at the seed stage. You are overpaying anyway. As I&rsquo;ve said before, this isn&rsquo;t a value investing business. This is a back the best, build value, and make 100x business. It doesn&rsquo;t really pay to pass on a deal at the seed stage because of price. If it does great, you just missed a great opportunity. If it does poorly, valuation didn&rsquo;t matter anyway.</p>
<p>On the flip side, as an entrepreneur, remember that getting a deal done with an investor that you want is more important than optimizing on valuation. In both cases, focusing on building a meaningful and enduring company trumps focusing on a great &ldquo;deal."</p>
<p><em>This article originally appeared at <a href="http://www.robgo.org/">RobGo.org</a> and is republished here with permission. </em></p>
</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/valuation-witchcraft-where-do-seed-valuations-come-from-2-2010-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/super-angels-2010-9The Idea That Entrepreneurs Only Need Super Angels Doesn’t Make Sensehttp://www.businessinsider.com/super-angels-2010-9
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:50:00 -0400Brad Feld
<p><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4b684fc70000000000e800e7/brad-feld-new-4x3.jpg" border="0" alt="brad feld new 4x3" /></em>In the beginning, there were angel investors. And it was good. As individual angel investors made more and more investments, they became super angels.</p>
<p>One day a super angel woke up and thought to himself, &ldquo;Gosh, I could do a lot more investments if I had a fund.&rdquo; And so the super angels became micro-VCs (or &ldquo;institutionalized super angels&rdquo;). Everyone was excited and on the seventh day they did another deal instead of resting.</p>
<p>I&rsquo;m a huge fan of the super angel movement. Some of my best friends are super angels and I&rsquo;ve put my own money where my mouth is in funds like Chris Sacca&rsquo;s, Dave McClure&rsquo;s, Jeff Clavier&rsquo;s, Roger Ehrenberg&rsquo;s, and David Cohen&rsquo;s. Not only am I an investor in these super angels, I love to have them on board with our investments at Foundry Group. And whenever they bring me something they&rsquo;ve been working on, I always pay attention&ndash;as I know they know what I like to invest in.</p>
<p>But recently the super angel mantra of &ldquo;traditional VCs suck&rdquo; has reached a fevered pitch. What started out in Silicon Valley as a new wave of angel investors has evolved into a belief that &ldquo;VCs are lousy seed investors&rdquo; and &ldquo;no one needs a VC&ndash;just raise your money from super angels and go to town.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures recently wrote an excellent blog post titled &ldquo;The Expanding Birthrate of Web Startups.&rdquo; As with many of Fred&rsquo;s posts, the comment section was as useful as the post, and early-stage investors such as Mark Suster, Charlie O&rsquo;Donnell, Roger Ehrenberg, and Anonymous Coward weighed in. The comments ranged from the now cliche-ish &ldquo;VCs suck&rdquo; to &ldquo;What happens when super angel-backed companies need a new round&rdquo; to &ldquo;Companies will never need more capital. It&rsquo;s a new world out there.&rdquo; As I read through the comments, I kept pondering the same thought: &ldquo;What happens in five years?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Let&rsquo;s consider a few situations. Take a typical super angel. Assume success. Investors (LPs and individuals like me) want to invest money with the super angel. The super angel probably creates a fund and raises a lot more money. Now the super angel is a micro-VC. Continue to assume success. More money is able to be raised. Now the micro-VC is a mini-VC. Does this keep scaling, or does the mini-VC succumb to the same challenges that $200 million funds ran into when they turned into $1 billion funds?</p>
<p>Now, take a super angel with a 20-company portfolio. The super angel is hyper-connected and works closely with the entrepreneurs he/she invests in. Suddenly he/she has 100 investments. Are the entrepreneurs getting the same attention from that angel&ndash;especially when they enter year three of their life, hit a bunch of speed bumps and need a lot of help? Or does this super angel just turn his/her back and say, &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s the breaks.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Finally, take a super angel who is used to making $25,000 to $100,000 per investment. He/she becomes a micro-VC, raises a bigger fund, and now invests $500,000 per deal. Is there a difference in his/her behavior with regard to the $25,000 investments vs. the $500,000 investments?</p>
<p>I think the super angel movement is awesome, but the generalization that all VCs suck at seed investing doesn&rsquo;t make sense to me. Correspondingly, the idea that entrepreneurs only need super angels doesn&rsquo;t make sense either. There&rsquo;s a renewed focus and interest in early-stage investing going on in the United States, and it&rsquo;s being stimulated by a lot of factors. It&rsquo;s a powerful thing that will continue to evolve, change and challenge all of the participants.</p>
<p>(This <a href="http://www.pehub.com/81065/serious-questions-for-super-angels/">post on super angels I wrote yesterday for PEHub</a>.)</p>
<p><em>This post orginally appeared at <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/09/serious-questions-for-super-angels.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FeldThoughts+%28Feld+Thoughts%29">Feld Thoughts </a>and is republished here with permission.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/super-angels-2010-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/angel-liquidity-fred-wilson-2010-8How Angels Can Get Liquidityhttp://www.businessinsider.com/angel-liquidity-fred-wilson-2010-8
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:46:21 -0400Fred Wilson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4b69ca910000000000ad56c0/victorias-secret-angels.jpg" border="0" alt="victorias secret angels" /></p><p>Lots of talk these days about new forms of angel/seed capital. But less talk about the most vexing issue facing the venture ecosystem over the past decade - that being the shrinking amount of liquidity on the way out.</p>
<p>If you look at how much money has been raised by venture firms, including the seed and super seed categories, versus how much money has been returned in the past ten years, the ratio is not good. At some point the investors who fund the venture capital asset class will not be able to keep funding it.</p>
<p>The asset class needs to focus on liquidity. M&amp;A continues to be the one bright spot and although I have not seen the data, I suspect M&amp;A activity around venture backed companies in the past ten years has not shrunk and may have actually increased (if you take out the bubble years of 98-2000).</p>
<p>But IPOs of venture backed companies have almost been nonexistent over the past ten years. And that had been an important source of liquidity in the venture capital ecosystem. There is some hope that the IPOs of Skype and Demand Media will spark a renewed interest in tech IPOs. I am very excited about Skype. But friends on wall street tell me that the Skype IPO has issues, like a very weak stock market, the huge overhang of the eBay position, and a continued skepticism around tech IPOs. We will see. I am hoping my friends on Wall Street are wrong.</p>
<p>I have written about the emerging third way which is secondary sales of founder, angel, and VC stakes to late stage VC firms, growth equity firms, private equity firms, and even hedge funds. This has been a bright spot of late and the trend continues to be positive.</p>
<p>Yesterday <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/etsy-300-million-valuation/" target="_self">our portfolio company Etsy announced that it had concluded a largely secondary transaction with Index Ventures</a>. The interesting thing about this transaction is that it was not founder liquidity driven. The founders did not sell in the transaction. It was not VC liquidity driven. Some of the existing VC firms actually bought in the transaction. It was angel liquidity driven.</p>
<p>Etsy did two angel rounds early in its existence. Our firm participated in the second round. But both rounds were largely composed of individuals, including a bar owner and a restaurant owner who provided the first outside capital. In the video below, founder/CEO Rob Kalin tells the story of installing a new handmade wood bar for the bar owner and in return securing his first outside capital for Etsy. The entire video is very good. If you have a few minutes, check it out.</p>
<p>But the main point of this post is we are seeing that angels can get liquidity via these secondary transactions. They don't need to wait for the sale of the company or possibly the IPO. That is a very good thing, for the angel/seed sector, and for the overall venture capital market.</p>
<p>I hope these secondary purchases work out well for the funds that are making them. Because if they do, we will see even more of them. And that may be a way out of the liquidity issues plaguing the venture capital business these days.</p>
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=354&amp;width=630&amp;deepLinkEmbedCode=NubDNrMToBvP0XXVnACzktftfSHzFljz&amp;embedCode=NubDNrMToBvP0XXVnACzktftfSHzFljz"></script>
<p><em>Fred Wilson is a partner at Union Square Ventures. He writes the influential <a href="http://www.avc.com">A VC</a>, where this post was <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/angel-liquidity.html">originally published</a>.</em></p>
<div id="disqus_thread">&nbsp;</div>
<div>
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
var disqus_url = 'http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/angel-liquidity.html'
// ]]></script>
<script src="http://disqus.com/forums/avc/embed.js?ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0" type="text/javascript"></script>
</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/angel-liquidity-fred-wilson-2010-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-right-way-to-think-about-seed-investing-2010-8The Right Way To Think About Seed Investinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-right-way-to-think-about-seed-investing-2010-8
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:34:00 -0400Brad Feld
<div class="entry">
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4bb33e827f8b9a9261e20700/farmer.gif" border="0" alt="farmer" />Last week saw an explosion of discussion around seed investing, including plenty of negative comments around VCs as seed investors. &nbsp;</p>
<p>While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed investors. &nbsp;</p>
<p>This prompted me to write a post titled <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/07/angellist-is-looking-for-angel-investors-in-boulder.html">AngelList Boulder and Some Thoughts on Seed Investing</a> where I promised to write up some of my thoughts on how and why VCs could be good seed investors.</p>
<p>Before I got around to starting, there were three excellent posts that, if you are interested in this topic, are must reads. &nbsp;They are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fred Wilson: <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/lead-investors-dipshit-companies-and-funding-every-entrepreneur.html">Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur</a></li>
<li>Mark Suster: <a href="http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/08/01/my-seed-funding-policy/">Understanding a VC&rsquo;s Seed Funding Policy is Critical</a></li>
<li>Dave McClure: <a href="http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/07/moneyball-for-startups.html">MoneyBall for Startups:&nbsp;Invest BEFORE Product/Market Fit, Double-Down AFTER</a></li>
</ul>
<p>All three of these posts lay out clear points of view on the authors seed strategy. &nbsp;And importantly, Mark encourages all entrepreneurs to make sure they understand a VC&rsquo;s seed strategy before taking money, which I strongly agree with.</p>
<p>Before I start talking about good and bad VC seed strategies, I thought I&rsquo;d explain mine. &nbsp;For context, about 25% of the investments we make at <a href="http://www.foundrygroup.com/">Foundry Group</a> are seed investments. &nbsp;But before Foundry Group, my partners and I were involved in many seed investments, both at Mobius Venture Capital. In addition, I&rsquo;ve made many seed investments as an angel investor in two time periods,1994-1996 and 2006-2007, and seen many more through my involvement as a co-founder of <a href="http://www.techstars.org/">TechStars</a>. &nbsp;﻿Our strategy has evolved from this experience and is different from my angel investor strategy (which I&rsquo;ve explained in my post <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/06/suggestions-for-angel-investors.html">Suggestions for Angel Investors</a>.)</p>
<p>As a VC, I do not differentiate between a seed investment and any other investment that I make. &nbsp;At Foundry Group, we are comfortable investing as little as $250k in a round (a seed investment for us) all the way up to $10m in a round. &nbsp;We think about each investment &ndash; whether it&rsquo;s $250k or $10m &ndash; the same way, and commit to participating in the business for the long term.</p>
<p>Specifically, our seed investments are not &ldquo;options on the next round.&rdquo; &nbsp;We price our seed rounds as equity investments, always lead or co-lead (as Fred describes in&nbsp;﻿<a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/lead-investors-dipshit-companies-and-funding-every-entrepreneur.html">Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur</a>), and treat them the same way we would with a $10m investment.</p>
<p>I have three partners and all of us are involved in all of our investments. &nbsp;So, when we make a seed investment, it gets everyone&rsquo;s attention. &nbsp;We try hard not to smother it with love, but we recognize that we usually each have something unique to add to a seed investment and try to help accordingly. &nbsp;As a result, we are all emotionally involved in the investment (a phrase you&rsquo;ll see in later posts about this topic) which I believe is both beneficial to the entrepreneur and extremely important to the VC firm.</p>
<p>When we make a seed investment, we fully expect to invest at least the same amount that we invested in the seed round without thinking hard about it. &nbsp;One of our strongly held beliefs is that it often takes several years for a company to find its mojo and we are willing to work through the challenging first few years. &nbsp;As a result, we don&rsquo;t believe that there is a particularly critical &ldquo;go forward or not&rdquo; decision point immediately following the seed round. &nbsp;Now, this doesn&rsquo;t mean that the follow on round is blindly done &ndash; we are very internally critical of the progress a company is (or isn&rsquo;t) making, but we try to firmly put ourselves on the side of the entrepreneur in this discussion and work together when things start off slowly, or differently, than expected.</p>
<p>At Foundry Group, we describe ourselves as being &ldquo;syndication agnostic&rdquo;. &nbsp;This means we are completely indifferent as to whether we fund something ourselves or with other VCs (e.g. each are equally happy situations.) &nbsp;In addition, we are equally delighted to co-invest with angels and super angels, or not. &nbsp;Basically, we are happy in any case, are making a decision to invest independent of anyone else, and defer to the entrepreneur on who they want to have involved.</p>
<p>Finally, we are deliberate about the areas we invest in (our &ldquo;themes&rdquo;). &nbsp;We see a ton of seed investment opportunities, but only invest in a few. &nbsp;Many of the opportunities we see are outside of our themes. &nbsp;We have consciously decided to only invest in areas we know well and think we can be meaningfully additive to and constrain our focus to these themes (although the themes expand and evolve with our experience.) &nbsp;This lens allows us to spend the vast majority of our time on companies we are either investors in or likely to be investors in, and limits our time &ldquo;exploring lots of things that have a low probability of being an investment for us.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Taking Mark&rsquo;s lead from his post, I&rsquo;m going to put up a more specific post on the <a href="http://www.foundrygroup.com/wp/">Foundry Group blog</a> that lays this out in a very specific way. &nbsp;I&rsquo;ll also follow this post with some examples, as I&rsquo;ve got seven to choose from: <a href="http://www.admeld.com/">AdMeld</a>, <a href="http://www.gnip.com/">Gnip</a>, <a href="http://www.lijit.com/">Lijit</a>, <a href="http://www.themandelbrotproject.com/">Mandlebrot</a>, <a href="http://www.nextbigsound.com/">Next Big Sound</a>, <a href="http://www.standingcloud.com/">Standing Cloud</a>, and <a href="http://www.trada.com/">Trada</a>. &nbsp;And, in case you are wondering, here are two recent examples of how seed investments blossom: <a href="http://www.admeld.com/admeld_seriesc_fundraising.html">AdMeld Raised $15 Million Round from Norwest Venture Partners and Time Warner</a> and <a href="http://trada.com/blog/2010/07/21/google-ventures-funding/">Trada Raises $5.75 Million Round From Google Ventures</a>.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.feld.com/">Brad Feld</a> has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over 20 years and is the co-founder of <a href="http://www.foundrygroup.com/">Foundry Group</a>. <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/08/how-i-think-about-seed-investing-as-a-vc.html">This post</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/">his blog</a>, and it is republished here with permission.</em></p>
</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-right-way-to-think-about-seed-investing-2010-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/business-plans-are-always-wrong-2010-8Pre-Launch Business Plans Are Always Wronghttp://www.businessinsider.com/business-plans-are-always-wrong-2010-8
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:34:22 -0400Josh Kopelman
<p>As a seed-stage investor, <a href="http://www.firstround.com/">First Round Capital </a>typically funds powerpoints.&nbsp; Not only are the majority of our investments pre-revenue, but most of the time we are investing in pre-launch companies.&nbsp; While these companies might have an alpha/beta version of their site, it's usually early enough that we can&rsquo;t base our investment decision off of any market traction.&nbsp; Instead, we typically make our investment decisions based on three key areas:&nbsp; the size of the market, the strength of the team, and the product vision.&nbsp; &nbsp;This is often made even more difficult by the fact that we know that many of the businesses we fund end up with (one or more) pivots -- since their <a href="http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/10/your_business_p.html">business plan is always wrong</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>The Team</strong><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4c5826987f8b9ac62b5a0300/missile.jpg" border="0" alt="Missile" /></strong></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">I've lately started to realize that our most successful companies are led by entrepreneurs who have a unique talent -- they are <em>heat seeking missiles.</em>&nbsp; It doesn't matter where the missile is aimed pre-launch.&nbsp; Successful entrepreneurs are constantly collecting data -- and constantly looking for bigger and better targets, adjusting course if necessary.&nbsp; And when they find their target, they're able to lock-onto it -- regardless of how crowded the space becomes.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">When <a href="http://www.invitemedia.com/about_us/management.shtml">Nat and Zach</a> first came to us with the idea for <a href="http://www.invitemedia.com/">Invite Media</a>, it was focused on algorithms for ad targeting.&nbsp; But once they got into the market the team saw a bigger opportunity -- the DSP space -- and they locked-onto that target with <a href="http://nothingtosay.firstround.com/2010/06/invitemediagoogle.html">a successful outcome</a>.&nbsp; We funded <a href="http://www.videoegg.com/">VideoEgg</a> back in 2005 with the goal of creating tools to manage online video -- but <a href="http://www.videoegg.com/about/">Matt</a> and team quickly adjusted course and have now become a leading media network for brand advertisers.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When we first met <a href="http://www.rockyou.com/corp/management.php">Lance and Jia</a> in 2006, they had a cool photo-hosting application called RockMySpace -- but they quickly found&nbsp; the opportunity was much larger than photo-hosting, and <a href="http://www.rockyou.com/corp/about.php">RockYou</a> has since became a leading provider of social networking and gaming applications.</p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><strong>Market</strong></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Markets really matter.&nbsp; Because the bigger the market, the more targets there are for the missile to hit.&nbsp; I've seen many companies fail to reach their potential because -- despite the skill of the founders -- they ultimately realize that there just aren't enough (or any) big targets for them to lock-onto.&nbsp; It's really hard to start a company -- and there are so many risks that all startups share, regardless of market size.&nbsp; Whether you're targeting a $10M addressable market or a $1B addressable market, you're still going to face Hiring Risk, Marketing Risk, Competitive Risk, Technology Risk, and&nbsp; Financing Risk.&nbsp;&nbsp; And while bigger markets might pose more challenges than smaller markets, the risks involved in targetting a $1B market are not 100x greater than those involved in $10M market.&nbsp; Choosing the right market is critical, because the market you choose determines the targets that are available for the heat-seeking missile to hit.</p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Sometimes entrepreneurs (like <a href="http://www.mint.com/company/">Aaron</a>) will have such a strong sense of the market that their initial product plan is dead-on.&nbsp; But most of the time we see the product iterate and morph over time.&nbsp; As a result, product is often the hardest thing to evaluate pre-launch.&nbsp;&nbsp; And some of our biggest mistakes have occurred when we passed on companies based on their pre-launch product.&nbsp; So today we tend to focus on a company's product <em>vision</em>, rather than on the specific <em>implementation</em> of a pre-launch product.&nbsp; We've also found that a pre-launch product plan is a great way for us to get additional input on the team.&nbsp; Have they studied the competition?&nbsp; Do they really understand how to leverage social networks, game mechanics, etc?&nbsp; Do they have a data-driven philosophy or a gut-driven philosophy.&nbsp; Why did they make the choices they made?</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I've really come to believe that you can't predict success based on where a missile is pointed pre-launch.&nbsp; Instead you have to assess the quality of the targeting system (the team) and the density/size of targets (the market). &nbsp; And hope that the missile you launch finds a true target -- rather than a decoy...</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/business-plans-are-always-wrong-2010-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/happy-loser-tim-armstrong-made-15-million-cash-yesterday-2010-5Happy Loser Tim Armstrong Made $15 Million Cash Yesterday (AOL, YHOO)http://www.businessinsider.com/happy-loser-tim-armstrong-made-15-million-cash-yesterday-2010-5
Wed, 19 May 2010 09:52:00 -0400Nicholas Carlson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4b50ef78000000000028d786-374-280/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-at-nyse.jpg" border="0" alt="AOL CEO Tim Armstrong at NYSE" width="374" height="280" /></p><p>AOL CEO Tim Armstrong <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/three-months-ago-aol-tried-to-buy-associated-content-2009-12">wanted AOL to buy Associated Content last fall</a>, but AOL's then parent-company Time Warner (TWX) said no.</p>
<p>Yesterday, Yahoo swooped in and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-buys-associated-content-for-100-million-2010-5">snatched Associated Content for $90 million.</a></p>
<p>Given that information, you'd think Tim would be upset about losing the deal.</p>
<p>But that's incomplete information.</p>
<p>The full story is that Tim helped found Associated Content and, until yesterday, owned about 20% of the company, according to a source close to the deal.</p>
<p>So yeah, Tim is probably a little bummed that AOL (AOL) won't ever be able to hook its own <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-aols-content-strategy-is-a-mess-2010-3">floundering freelancer platform Seed.com</a> up with Associated Content's superior technology, but we're guessing he doesn't mind the extra $15 million in cash after taxes in his pocket, either.</p>
<p><strong>Don't miss: <a href="../henry-blodget-aols-content-strategy-is-a-mess-2010-3" target="_blank">AOL's Content Strategy Is Still A Mess</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/happy-loser-tim-armstrong-made-15-million-cash-yesterday-2010-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-considers-outsourcing-fact-checking-and-copy-editing-2010-4AOL Considers Outsourcing Fact-Checking And Copy-Editing (AOL)http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-considers-outsourcing-fact-checking-and-copy-editing-2010-4
Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:02:00 -0400Nicholas Carlson
<p>In an on-going survey, AOL is asking its Seed.com freelancers how interested they might be in "some features and types of projects we have recently added or may add in the future to Seed."</p>
<p>We were "somewhat interested" to see that AOL could start out-sourcing fact-checking and copy-editing.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-considers-outsourcing-fact-checking-and-copy-editing-2010-4/-1"><strong>Click to see the rest of the survey &rarr;</strong></a></p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4bbf3b377f8b9a0c232f0200-585-438/aol-seedcom-survey.jpg" border="0" alt="AOL Seed.com Survey" width="585" height="438" /></p><h3> </h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4bbf47027f8b9a6204290100-400-300/.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3> </h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4bbf3b347f8b9ac901a10000-400-300/.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3> </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4bbf3b357f8b9aa5761c0200-400-300/.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-considers-outsourcing-fact-checking-and-copy-editing-2010-4#-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a>